The Lazarus Pit
by Necchan
Summary: BEWARE OF THE WARNINGS INSIDE. "The bad thing about the Lazarus Pit, is that it makes you remember." Jay/Tim, heavy angst.


**I'm supposed to be working. I'm not. STOP ME PLEASE.**

**Title: **The Lazarus Pit

**Fandom:** DCU- Batman.

**Rating:** heavy R.

**Genre: **Romance, angst.

**Wordcount:** 1000+.

**Characters/Pairings: **Jason/Tim.

**Warnings: **Un-betaed. Stream-of-consciousness. Not-graphic mentions of blood, war, slavery, violence, sin and sex (I went all out with this one *shameface*).

**Summary: **The bad thing about the Lazarus Pit, is that it makes you_ remember_.

* * *

><p><strong>T<strong>he bad thing about the Lazarus Pit, is that it makes you_ remember_.

It doesn't drive you crazy, as some say; and it doesn't rip a piece of a demon's soul to imbue the empty puppet of your decaying corpse. No. It does worse. Much _worse_.

It wakes you up.

You.

Your soul.

Not someone else's.

And when you come back, you're not a demon in a human's clothing.

You're yourself.

You're everything _you've ever been_.

* * *

><p>You're Jason, but not just Jason.<p>

You're all the Jasons who there have ever been.

This is what the Pit did to mend you.

It awoke those parts of your soul – those shiny, those tenebrous portions of it – that lived in a time and a place removed from this, and it made you wholer than whole. It gave you a soul, a memory, that stretches beyond confines, that overflows the fleshy vessel of your body and threatens to spill out, like water from a brimming vase.

You were a solider once. In a sunny land with crunchy white sand that shone iron-hot under the light, and a sapphire ocean that crashed against jagged rocks, spraying pearly foam against your tunic and sandals.

You were a slave. Naked and wild, prowling like a wolf the halls of a perfumed palace, jasmine oil rubbed on your rippling muscles, silver manacles secured around your ankles, chains trailing like writhing serpents behind you.

You were a holy man once, and isn't that just hilarious? You lived in a monastery that lay like a vulture through the snowy peaks of Middle Europe, a place of quiet and silence and terrible sins. You fought to keep war out of the holy ground, fought and bled to keep it out of the massive oak doors, and it sneaked in from the back, tiptoed from the underground passages like a ghoul raising from its crypt, and made bloody work of your brothers, of the young prince studying the sacred books in your precious library.

There was a time when you _pretended _to be a holy man. A runaway renegade, found by pious men as he lay in the moss and the rotting remains of his own clothes, his chest marked by one-thousand-and-one wars, wrists bruised with the remainders of years of torture. You hid amongst them, wearing their rough robes against your still-bleeding back, hiding in plain sight amongst the dappling shadows of the orange-sweet Andalusia, with the Moors haunting the shores and the delicate white hands of one of the Castle's helpers haunting your dreams.

You were a king once – or were supposed to be. You were prince and you were sold to the enemies that conquered your land, and you were made to watch as they turned your little brother into their pleasure toy.

You were a sailor. You turned pirate. You sailed the jewels sea of the Caribbean, you fought storms and the burning heat of the unforgiving sun, and you brought home riches and gold, strings of pearl to dapple around your mother's neck, and rings and old maps and golden compasses for your precious lover, and small knives you used to teach him how to defend himself.

You were countless other men, but you were always _you_.

You were Duncan once. You were Asa. You were Raphael. You were Blaise.

You were in love.

All the times.

You were Duncan, and you loved Tadhg. You were Asa, and you loved Tim. You where Raphael and you loved Timothy. You where Blaise, and you loved Timothée, because the fucker couldn't be creative and ever get a different name, could he?

Tim.

Tim.

Always.

Your _Tim_.

Beloved Tim.

The Tim you fought, you alienate, because, truly, what can he want with you? What can you offer him, when your love always, _always_ ends in tears?

How can you watch this latest incarnation of him – this fighter with bird bones and bedroom eyes and a silver mind – and not see other Tims superimposed on him?

How can you watch him tilt his head, and not remember the little boy with the pale-blue blooms arranged around his forehead, the giggling little rascal that you used to chase through the streets of Athens?

How can you watch him emerge from the Gotham shadows as though he's but a filament of their teeming pattern, and not remember the prince in furs and velvet that came to you in the holy ground of the German monastery, his hands smooth and cold on your heart, his breath hot against your neck, moist and gliding on your feverish skin, his lips as red as blood, as red as sin?

How can you watch him narrow his eyes in thought, brows furrowed together over his mask, and not remember the sylph-like orphan that you bought in Port Royale, and that was more use to the ship then half the crew put together, even if he was small and malnourished and crippled?

How can you watch him be himself, just be _there_, beautiful and still and eerie and scarred and perfect and sorrowful and broken and not remember huge eyes, shining blue and fearless over sooth-covered cheeks; remember the flash of white teeth as work-roughened hands trailed down your chest, nails catching on your nipples, and then dipped low, and lower, trailing down your stomach, between your legs, trembling and hot, careful but firm, gentle but shy, coaxing you and teasing you until you leaned over and pushed him down and covered him and tasted fruit and salt from his chapped mouth, tasted his moans and found them sweeter than the finest wine? Remember his body against yours, his warmth, his strength and shyness, the taste of salt of his skin, the exact texture of his every scar, the scent of his hair?

You can't.

You watch, and you remember, and you yearn, and you flee.

* * *

><p>Because the Lazarus Pit didn't drive you crazy, as some say; it didn't rip a piece of a demon's soul to imbue the empty puppet of your decaying corpse. No. It did worse. Much <em>worse<em>.

It woke you up.

You.

Your soul.

Not someone else's.

You came back, and you are not a demon in a human's clothing.

You're yourself.

You're everything _you've ever been_.

* * *

><p>And that's not something you've ever thought worthy of<em> Tim<em>.


End file.
